Missing Moon
by luckytrash
Summary: She loved her life in Konoha, but she left and found a whole lot more exciting life in Suna and now shes being forced to move back to Konoha, to the friends she left, and resently, never wanted to see again. AU Racing Schoollife SasuSaku Future Lemons
1. Missing Moon

**Missing Moon**

The sand was cold.

Strange, Sakura thought. This was the desert, and desert sand should be hot. She scooped up a gritty handful and let it trickle through her fingers, which were also cold. It was such a dark night that she couldn't even see the grains as sand as they fell.

This was not like playground sand. This sand felt mean.

There were stars out, though, and they seemed to wink kindly at Sakura. One great wash of starlight smeared across the black sky in a giant arc, and thousands of little stars surged toward it as if wanting to get in on the action.

No moon. Where was the moon?

Her head hurt.

"My head hurts," she tried to say aloud, almost as an experiment, but the words could not make thier way past her lips. And there was something even more important than the hurting, Sakura thought suddenly, something she had to remember. She shook the last grains of sand from her hand and - as if she might help her memory - she touched her face.

Sticky.

Why, she wondered, was she sitting cross-legged on the cold sand in the middle of the night?

All alone?

And where was all the noise coming from?

* * *

_"Oh, my god - that car's completely flipped over. It went right through the barbed wire, and it's smashed flatter than a - did someone call 911?"_

_"I'm talking to 911 now! The lady says - "_

_"Shine your headlights over here. I can't see if there's anyone - "_

_"Don't you get too close to that car. What if it explodes?"_

_"Did you see that SUV swerve over the center line? Brand-new, too. What in the world -"_

_"I don't hear any sirens! What's taking them so long?"_

_"What do the expect? We're in the middle of the desert. Neartest town must be ten miles back, and I didn't even see a gas station there, much less a hospital."_

_"That was Aguila. It's barely even a town. They have a volunteer fire department, I think, but this looks too serious for them to handle. If anyone's still alive, they'll have to be airlifted to Suna. The 911 woman says we're supposed to see if anyone needs CPR."_

_"Don't even think about it - Hey! Get back up here! I think I'm going to be sick! No one could be alive in that car, and there's no point you getting killed, too. I can smell the gas from here - It's gonna blow up..."_

_"I think there's two people in the front seats, but I can't tell for sure. If there're in there, they're not moving. And the back of the car is so smashed up that I can't make out if - can we get more light over here?!"_

_"H-Hey, I think I see -"_

_"Fire!"_

* * *

Snakes come out at night in the desert, Sakura rembered. If she actually saw a snake, and she lived to tell the tale, she could just casually mention it to everyone at school - well, in her class, at least - and pretend that it was no big deal. Ino and Hinata would think that was pretty cool.

'No, wait,' Sakura thought dully, 'I haven't seen them in years.' It was March, and she and her friends were on their way to the race in Amegakure to celebrate something. What was it again?

Her friends decided to make the long drive at night. Well, you just about had to drive at night in Wind when you planning to go through the desert and it was as hot out as it been. Over 110 degrees in Suna, four days in a row! Much cooler in Konoha, of course, but she didn't live in Konoha anymore.

Sakura nodded once in the dark, as if she had just finished adding up all those big temperature numbers in her head. "Ow," she whispered, surprised.

Although they'd left home after ten P.M, Sakura remembered, it was still warm out. That's why they'd rolled down all the car windows. She had fallen asleep in the passenger seat, seat belt fasten.

Where _was_ everyone?

Sakura frowned a little, trying to think. Broken Creosote bushes filled the air with their pungenr odor, so much like the smell of burning brakes, and they mingled with - with something else. What was it? Gasoline?

She had to ask someone. "Sasori?" she said, but the word sounded more like "sury" as she uttered it.

Sakura blinked at the sound she had made and slowly moved her head, searching for her friends. Her gaze settled briefly on an unimaginable scene some distance away, and she shook her head slightly, averting her eyed. "Hurts," she announced again, as if someone else were standing right there. The word came out very clearly this time.

She closed her eyes.

"Sakura?" Soft as it was, her friend's voice seemed to slice though the desert night.

"Gaara?" Sakura said, opening her eyes in wonder.

In front of her, her friend's round white face glowed like the missing moon. His sturdy body seemed planted on the desert floor, as if it belonged there.

Sakura tried to smile. "Gaara," she said again, pleased with the success her mouth made of the word.

"What's the matter with your face?" Gaara asked. He sounded scarded, and his eyes were open wide.

Sakura touched her face once more. Still sicky. "I don't know," she said, puzzled.

"What?"

"I don't know," Sakura said, louder.

"I can't - I don't understand... what you're saying." Gaara closed his eyes tightly. "Where's everyone?"

Gaara's face was gettting smaller by the second, Sakura noticed. She wanted to reach out to him, touch his cheek, maybe, but she couldn't remember how anymore.

She was very cold now, and people were shouting fire, fire.

She needed to know what was happening. Everything was a blur, but she stood up, and some how ran.

Leaving Gaara behind,she ran toward the fire.

Her entire body hurt, but she kept on running.

"Temari?!" she tried to yell, but she couldn't.

"Deidara?!" she tried again, and once again, she failed.

Her voice was gone.

* * *

Sakura felt the blast from where she stood. The desert floor seemed to lift a little, then settle back into itself.

"No!" Sakura was trying to scream when the roaring stopped. Then there was pain - immense pain. She stumbled backward. Something just pierced through her. It felt like her entire stomach was ripped right in half.

She started to choke. She could taste the awful taste of metal.

Blood was seeping out of her mouth, and down her chin.

There was someone in front of her, but she couldn't see their face.

Everything was so blurry.

Her arms out and her fingers spread wide, as if she was about to count to ten.

One, two, three, Sakura began, her lips barely forming the words, but then she hesitated. What came after that, three?

No, she already said three.

Slowly, she laid down.

She could not remember the next number, so she curled up into a thight little ball on the cold desert sand, shut her eyes and listened to the fire burning everything around her.

The new pain on her stomach, forgotten.

Sakura's smile was tender. 'I wonder whats to come soon for me,' she thought silently.


	2. Missing Memories

**Missing Memories**

"Happy birthday, Sakura," Kankuro said.

Sakura Haruno opened her eyes cautiously.

It couldn't be her birthday. Her birthday was March 28th, and today was - well, it was days earlier than that.

And where was she, anyway? Her face was completely bandaged, except for her eyes, and under a blue cotton blanket, something was squeezing each of her legs with rhythmic wheezes. It felt kind of good.

"Kankuro? Are you okay?"

"He's fine. I'm here, too, Sakura," a woman's voice said.

That was Temari standing there.

"Where am I?" Sakura tried to ask, but it sounded more like "Whug ma," even to her.

"Don't try to talk, Sakura," Temari said. There was a moment's silence.

"Give Sakura her birthday present, Kankuro," Temari told her brother.

Silently he grabbed a small box from his pocket. Gently he held the box in front of her face. She noticed that his arm was wrapped with bandages, but didn't think anything of it.

"Thank you," Sakura said, wriggling a hand up from under the covers to accept the gift. Her hands felt normal, at least, but she didn't bother to even open it.

There was another moment of silence.

"Hope you like it, Sakura," Kankuro said softly. "Your old one burned up in the fire, so we got you a new one."

The fire? What fire?

"Fire?," Sakura asked, barely able to understand it.

"The doctors said you might not remember,... what happened," Temari said. "We just came here to wish you a quick happy birthday... We can talk about it later..."

Talk about it.

Later.

But Sakura wanted to know now. "No, you guys can stay," She said."Sakura you should really stop talking," Temari said, " It isn't good for you." She was about to ask why, but instead gave a small nod as understanding.

"We'll be back in a while Sakura."

* * *

It was Sakura's sixteenth birthday, and she was in a private room on the second floor of the Hospital in Suna, Wind. She knew that much, now.

There was some discussion going on about whether or not she should be in that room, however, and she was overhearing most of it.

"I really think that Miss Haruno would be better off if we moved her in with a girl closer to her own age," the woman with the clipboard said to someone who must have just walked in. The clipboard woman had come just as Temari and Kankuro were leaving. She'd been trying to for an hour to get Sakura to talk to her, or even to write down her thoughts, but Sakura finally pretended to fall asleep.

Because whose business was it what had happened? Some stranger's?

Not that Sakura could remember much about the car accident - or the day leading up to it, or the days after it.

The doctors had told her that was to be expected, though. "You've experienced a shocking event, Miss Haruno, and then there's the concussion...."

She did remember a few things. Sasori and Deidara had been talking softly. Sasori was driving and Deidara was in the seat behind him, Gaara next to him and they started chuckling at a joke someone had made, and then there bright lights, and the black sky, and there were stars whirling past the open window, and then -

"We call her Sakura," an angry voice shot back. "And she is going to stay in the best private room this hospital has to offer."

Temari. Sakura shut her eyes tighter and wished she could turn her face to the wall. She was supposed to lie perfectly still, though.

She counted a few leg squeezes. The leggings-like devices were there to reduce the chance of her getting a blood clot, the clipboard woman had explained. There was slight danger of this, because Sakura had been lying in one position for so long.

Four days, so far, since she had woken up.

"I know you're upset, and rightfully so," Sakura heard the clipboard woman say softly, "but we really need to think of what's best for - "

"I _know_ what's best for Sakura. She has been through a lot lately and I don't want her to feel any more pain!," Temari said, her voice shaking with rage.

"I really don't think that by just moving her to a new room would - "

"Like I said, I _know_ her, you_ people_ don't even know what she had to face - _what_ she had to _see _the night night of the accident."

The clipboard woman didn't say anything.

Sakura felt dizzy, hearing all these words at once. She could not sort them out. Sakura thought her heart was going to stop beating.

"I think we should move this discussion out into the hall, don't you?" the clipboard woman said firmly.

"No, I do not," Temari snapped. "I'm done with this."

* * *

She had been awake in the hospital for ten days, and her doctors finally felt that Sakura had safely passed the period during which swelling of her brain might have further endanger her.

The clipboard woman would check on her everyday and ask her if she could remember anything, and so Sakura learned that she could say "I can't remember!" in a dozen different ways, and, people would still listen.

Everyone was very nice to her. But they didn't make her cry, Sakura thought with some satisfaction. She had wanted to avoid that, because if she cried, then everything that people were saying had happened would be true.

So in a way, it was all up to her.

* * *

"They're going to fix you up as good as new in Konoha," the consulting plastic surgeon said, beaming. "Maybe even better than new, but not for another couple of weeks. Not until your body heals. But then they'll smooth you out like nobody's business! I know some older women who would give anything to have the operation you'll be getting." He was standing half in Sakura's room as he spoke and half in the hallway, as if he was supposed to be in two places at once but couldn't quite figure out to pull it off.

"How could I be better than new?" Sakura managed to ask, fingering the bandages that covered the bumpy pieces of grit that had gotten embedded under her skin as she skidded across the desert floor at a million miles an hour.

The surgeon laughed as if Sakura had tried to make a joke. He looked at his watch.

"I mean it," Sakura insisted, not backing down. "How could any doctor make me any better than I was before?"

The man paled under his tan, and he stepped back into the room, letting the heavy door close behind him. "I - I - "

"Oh, it's okay. You can go," Sakura said, suddenly feeling sorry for him.

"I only meant that - that you're going to feel like a whole new person, miss Haruno. It'll only be little debridement. You know, touch-up work, to smooth all those abrasions and even out that cut on your cheek a bit. You're a very pretty girl, honey, and we want to keep you that way."

But she didn't _want_ to be touched up, Sakura thought.

She just wanted things to be the way they used to be.

* * *

"What are you so worried about, Sakura? They have excellent plastic surgeons in Konoha, you know," the clipboard woman told Sakura that afternoon, almost conversationally, but Sakura already knew that. Sakura never really did bother to know her name, thinking it was pointless. The clipboard woman was okay - as long as she didn't talk about the accident. But the woman seemed to have a one-track mind.

_What about the way I look __now__?_ Sakura wished she could shout. _Why do I have to go around scaring little kids for two more months just to make things easier for some Konoha doctor? And if you must know,_ She wanted to add, _I'm worried about looking different. Everyone I know won't be able to recognize me if that stupid plastic surgeon changes me too much._

But she couldn't bring herself to utter the words. If she did said them aloud, maybe it would happen.

* * *

Her hospital days seemed endless. The high points were when the doctors made their rounds made their rounds in the morning, even though Sakura was embarrassed to be the center of attention, and when the floor-waxing man whirred his machine down the hall each afternoon.

The door of her room was usually left open, no matter how many times she asked that it be closed.

The other twenty-three hours each day were boring, even though Sakura sometimes suddenly felt terrified for no reason that she could figure out. And occasionally there was pain. The fear or pain might only last a second or two, but even that was enough to make it difficult for Sakura to let her mind relax the rest of the time. It was as if she had to keep her eyes open, or who knew what might happen?

Therefore, she was spending a lot of time thinking, but only about certain things. She attempted to reconstruct every detail of her life, for instance - of her old life in Konoha, that was, not this bogus Suna hospital life.

Losing herself in such a detailed kind of memory helped Sakura to make sleepless hours pass.

It was kind of a game, actually.

Also, thinking of her old friends kept Sakura from thinking about anything else.


End file.
